American Youths and War: An Interesting Study

COL Sam Russell — Sat, 13 Aug 2016 09:32:07 -0400

I recently read a piece about what it means to be a veteran, where the author bemoans his five years in the military, 2011-2016, without ever being given the "opportunity" to deploy to combat. He states, “I will never know if I am the kind of man I admired in the documentaries and books I cherished as a kid. I doubt I’ll ever feel like I am wholly a veteran, worthy of the thanks, praises and even the discounts endlessly showered on us today.” If it was combat he was seeking, The War Horse should have stayed in and continued to reenlist, or seek a commission. If there is one thing that is guaranteed in this world, it is that there will be more wars. Missed this last one? Just keep training; there'll be another along, soon enough.

I spent the first fourteen years of my career preparing for war: watched Just Cause unfold on AFN; guarded housing areas in Germany during Desert Shield / Desert Storm; heard about the battle of Mogadishu on a Bright Star Exercise in the sands of the Sahara; watched our Haiti invasion force in Cuba stand down in what seemed like minutes before launching; Bosnia, Kosovo, missed them all. The 1990s seemed like one operational deployment after another, but my only taste of it was three weeks at GTMO with a JSOTF ordered to invade and then stand down. I actually had many of the same feelings--though never spoken nor written--as The War Horse in his article.

Then came 9-11. The second 14 years of my career have been: prepare to deploy, deploy, recover, repeat: 7 months in Qatar and Pakistan; 27 months in Iraq; multiple rotations to Kuwait. Oddly, never Afghanistan (knock on wood).

I was barely old enough to remember my father returning from his second tour in Vietnam. It is my earliest memory of Dad. It was his last deployment or remote tour. He was always in my life from that point on despite serving another 17 years. My children had the opposite experience; when they were young children, I was always there. For their formative teenage years, I was never around; on field exercises or CTC rotations preparing for the next deployment, or deployed for what must have seemed a lifetime to them. That experience left my children cold to the idea of military service. Through their eyes, Army service tears families apart and leaves moms to raise kids on their own.

Every generation has its wars. The gnarled and scarred old men stoically hold back their tears as they watch their military-aged-children eagerly head off to what the combat veteran knows will be the worst horror filled experience of their young lives, but all those youths can think of is the glory they'll attain and the respect they'll earn.

The following link is an interesting study from the Pew Research Center written in 2006. "There is a generation gap over U.S. military interventions, but it is older Americans, not young people, who typically show the greatest wariness about using military force."

http://www.pewresearch.org/2006/02/21/youth-and-war/

General Douglas MacArthur famously said, "The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war." But, he was an old man, a retired soldier, when he said it. I doubt he held such an opinion when he was a young lieutenant fresh out of West Point.

MacArthur also famously mis-attributed the following quote to Plato, but it was George Santayana who so succinctly said:

"Yet the poor fellows think they are safe!
They think that the war--perhaps the last of all wars--is over!
Only the dead are safe;
only the dead have seen the end of war."
--George Santayana's Soliloquy "Tipperary," 1918--

One final quote...

"War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead."
--Tim O'Brien, "The Things They Carried," 1998--

Youth and War

Neither hawks nor doves, America's youth are more willing than their elders to give both war and peace a chance. A new poll analysis finds that generational differences on the use of force confound the stereotypes.

Response by SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth made Aug 13 at 2016 9:45 AM

SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth — Sat, 13 Aug 2016 09:45:21 -0400

A great leader, and military mind.

Response by MCPO Roger Collins made Aug 13 at 2016 10:51 AM

MCPO Roger Collins — Sat, 13 Aug 2016 10:51:37 -0400

Precisely what I was saying, COL.

Response by LTC Stephen C. made Aug 13 at 2016 12:20 PM

LTC Stephen C. — Sat, 13 Aug 2016 12:20:40 -0400

COL Sam Russell, you are correct about General Douglas MacArthur's opinions regarding war as a young officer. To his credit though, he did not hide behind his rank or position when the going got tough. His actions at Vera Cruz and during WWI showed that he definitely led from the front and did not shy away from battle, so he had first hand knowledge that it "is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war." Of course, the quote comes from his "Duty, Honor, Country" speech delivered to the Corps of Cadets at West Point on 12MAY62. SGT Private RallyPoint Member CSM Charles Hayden

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 13 at 2016 12:30 PM

SGT Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 13 Aug 2016 12:30:46 -0400

Im sorry. This is going to be long and boring.
As a young naive 19 year old, I couldn't begin to understand what I was headed for. After I got to Vietnam it didn't take long for me to see what I was in for. Everything happened so fast, I didn't have time to worry about myself. My grunt buddies were being slaughtered, my helo buddies were crashing and dying, and all I could do was keep on trucking. It wasn't until I came back home that I had a chance to think about what all of us had been through. As I was processing that, I was sent to Fort Campbell to train for the racial riots in Deteroit, Michigan. In Detroit, once again, I was not concerned as much for myself as I was my squad. We went on night runs through neighborhoods to chase down, and arrest snipers. All six of us were recently returned Vietnam vets. I guess you could call it my second deployment. We did get shot at, and we did chase down the snipers, and we did turn them over to the police. Then the police took all three of them into an alley and killed all three with shotgun blasts in their backs. I was told by my PL to forget about it and not to say anything. They shot at us with a blank starter pistol. After I returned to Fort Campbell I was sent to Fort Bragg, where everything was normal, and I had it pretty good just doing my job, preparing troops to go to Vietnam. They were young and dumb like I was at first, and they didn't particularly like hearing about what it was like in Vietnam, and, I didn't particularly like talking about my tour in Vietnam. Those guys had heard stories about Vietnam and were scared. They weren't out to be a hero, or be awarded anything for valor. All they wanted to do was go and come back. Our war was everyday 24/7 for a year or more. I saw more death in one month than most of the kids today see in a year. That's what's so good about our military now. They know what they're getting into, because they take their war serious, before they deploy. I guess what I'm trying to write is, because of computer game, cell phones, etc, they look at war in a different perspective. It's all about being a hero, and wanting to be in combat. That is, until they get what they wanted, and it's not so glorious and heroic as they envisioned. Then they are like other combat veterans. Afraid, alone, denying PTSD, and moving on to suicide. That seems to be the circle of life with a combat veteran. It was after Vietnam, and it is after back to back to back tours in the Middle East. The End, but not really.

Response by Sgt Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 13 at 2016 3:09 PM

Sgt Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 13 Aug 2016 15:09:43 -0400

COL Sam Russell Sir, general Sherman was right. War is hell, and the aftereffects stay with you for the rest of your life.

Response by SFC William Farrell made Aug 13 at 2016 3:22 PM

SFC William Farrell — Sat, 13 Aug 2016 15:22:12 -0400

Great quotes COL Sam Russell, great commentary. Thank you.

Response by LCDR Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 28 at 2016 3:17 AM

LCDR Private RallyPoint Member — Sun, 28 Aug 2016 03:17:28 -0400

It would seem we have forgotten how terrible war is; perhaps we've become too good at it. But then one must ask, "Why this long?"

Response by SFC Michael Hasbun made Nov 6 at 2021 6:57 AM

SFC Michael Hasbun — Sat, 06 Nov 2021 06:57:55 -0400

I completely get that perspective.
To me, combat/deployment is "real world". It's where we take all of our training and garrison experience and actually apply it. It's where we discover what ACTUALLY works, what doesn't work, third order effects from our actions, how to manage those effects, etc... Basically, combat/deployment is where we do our REAL jobs.
In my personal opinion, if you have never deployed, all of your training and knowledge is still in the theoretical stage, because you've never applied it in the real world. All you have is what you were told, and what's worked in training/garrison, which as I stated earlier, is NOT the "real world" we train to operate in.
Without practical experience in the real world, all of your training will push you to no higher than novice status (regardless of rank or nifty schools). It's practical application that truly nets you knowledge, and not just theory.
The only setting that matters is combat/deployment. The rest is just training for that environment.
Now, nobody is saying that deployment makes you a badass, or a superhero, or special.
Only that it is a crucial component of the learning experience. In garrison and schools, you learn THEORY, generally based off of previously learned lessons from other wars . Only in combat do you know if any of it was, or still is true. Doctrine reflects combat experience, not the other way around..
What we learn now will become Doctrine/Training later, but only in future engagements will we learn if it's still valid. All knowledge is theoretical until applied.